


the warrior

by yopumpkinhead



Category: A Dark Room (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-15 01:13:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13020147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yopumpkinhead/pseuds/yopumpkinhead
Summary: the room is dark. the world is cold.what reason does a warrior have to go on?





	the warrior

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anticyclone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anticyclone/gifts).



> I love this weird little game so much, and I was so excited to see such lovely prompts for it. Thank you, and I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> Beta'd by the wonderful Libby!

The room is cold. The fire is dead.

She finds wood. Can't let herself freeze to death. Not after everything she’s seen. Not after everything she's survived.

{continue}

The room is warm. The flames dance cheerfully. 

She stares into the fire. Remembers the horrible bright power of the executioner. The flash of light as the humans’ sun collapsed beneath the pinnacle of wanderer weaponry. The humans’ screams as they realized what it meant.

The wanderers’ screams when they realized the defectors had sabotaged the remaining ships.

{continue}

How had it gone so wrong? They were wanderers. Meant for conquest. Meant to take what they wanted. 

Why had the defectors done it? What had the humans offered that they couldn't just take? 

{continue}

A sound at the door. She opens it. 

A ragged wanderer stumbles in. Collapses in a corner. Barely alive, shivering in the dark. 

She goes out for more wood. Fire will help.

{continue}

The wanderer has a human locket around her neck. Wakes up slow, groggy. Stares at her, for a very long time.

Occultists stare like that. 

Why is she so familiar? 

{continue}

The wanderer says she can build things. Says she's a friend. 

A builder led the defectors against the admiral. A builder who loved humans more than her own people. She remembers now, watching from the edge of the battlefield as the builder took aim at the admiral.

If she killed the builder now, it wouldn't repair the ships. It wouldn't un-fire the executioner.

She says the builder can stay.

{continue}

The builder says there's others. That they'll work, if she wants them to. The builder can make huts for them to live in, shops for them to work in. It's a good thought. If they work together, maybe they can escape this doomed world.

She starts to ask how to find them. Stops. The builder's eyes are sad, tired. Suddenly she's not sure she wants to see other wanderers just yet. 

{continue}

Collecting wood is hard work. She was a warrior, before the executioner. She has the strength for it. But she still wishes she could recruit others to help. 

Every time she tries to ask, the builder's tired eyes stop her.

{continue}

The need to roam, to explore, grows stronger. Wanderers aren't meant to sit in a hut and gather firewood.

She dreams of a compass. She's a warrior, not an occultist, but it feels like a vision anyway. She has to find it.

{continue}

She tells the builder she's going. Tells her it’ll be fine. They need more resources than they can gather in their little corner of the forest.

The builder asks, resources for what?

She doesn't have an answer.

{continue}

The builder makes weapons for her. Simple things made from the simple materials she can collect. But a spear doesn't need to be fancy. Just pointy. 

She ventures out. The builder watches her go. Worried. Tense. 

She promises she’ll return, but the builder doesn't look reassured. 

{continue}

More materials. Iron, then coal. The builder sets up a forge, and soon they have steel. 

They don't talk about the humans she kills while wandering. 

{continue}

She’s never been left behind on a world after the executioner fired before. It’s cold. Dark. The seven sisters rise and set, but Orion is slowly losing ground behind them. 

The planet’s path through the empty night will someday end that endless hunt. 

{continue}

She finds the compass. Wanderer work, tuned to the resources they need to roam the stars. She follows it. Finds alloy. Weapons. A ship.

Others found them first. She kills them all and takes what she wants.

{continue}

The humans are terrifying in their persistence. They should have given up a long time ago, succumbed to the wanderers’ superior might. They should have given up after the executioner.

They didn’t. 

She wonders why.

{continue}

Sometimes the humans fight her only because she is a wanderer. Sometimes she sees a child peeking around its parents’ legs, and knows they fight for something else. She kills them anyway. She was a warrior once. It’s a warrior’s job to kill.

Sometimes, when she’s slain the adults and claimed the spoils, the child’s cries follow her home. 

{continue}

She finds herself trying not to kill. Not humans, at least. This world has plenty of wild beasts to hunt for food. 

She was a warrior once, but she can't quite remember why she was so proud of that. 

{continue}

The world drifts into the dark. Its mother star long dead, long left behind. It’s far too cold. 

Nothing grows. She cuts down trees for wood and knows they will never grow back. Someday the wood will run out, and her room will go dark once more. 

{continue}

The builder stops hauling wood. Goes to sit by the fire. Staring into it, with the intensity of an occultist.

She cuts a last armload of wood. Takes it to the fire. Stokes it, waiting. She knows the builder wants to talk.

{continue}

The builder asks if she knows who she is. What she did, before the executioner was fired.

She says she was there. On the battlefield. Says she saw the builder fall to the admiral's guns. That no one thought she'd survived.

{continue}

The builder is quiet for a long time. The locket around her neck glows. Cadences of light spill from it. Mix with the warm firelight. 

The builder says that death doesn’t have to be the end.

{continue}

She asks why the builder goes on. The executioner was fired. This world is dying.

The builder says she learned something from the humans. Learned how to be a wanderer, not a destroyer.

{continue}

The words resonate. She'd forgotten what it was like, back when wandering was just wandering. Before the admiral led them to destroy in the name of wandering ever farther.

She remembers the defectors. Arms torn off, ragged stumps cauterized. They wanted it, so they could fit in with the humans they loved.

{continue}

She asks why the builder didn't give up her arms. The builder's expression turns sad. She couldn't build with only two arms, she says. And they needed a builder more than she needed to be like them.

She asks what the humans have, that the strongest builder of them all would have given up her birthright for them. 

{continue}

The builder smiles. Says the humans have joy. Have family. Have love. 

The wanderers have only conquest.

{continue}

She asks if the wanderers can ever get it back. They're trapped on this cold lost world too. Even the defectors roam with nothing but hate in their eyes and vengeance in their hearts.

The builder says she hopes they can.

{continue}

She says she wants to do it. Wants to fix this. Wants to escape this doomed planet and be a wanderer again. Not a warrior. Not a destroyer.

The builder shakes her head. Says she's not the first to want that. Says all the others gave in to the lust for conquest. Says she's watched too many fail. Can't bear to watch another one. 

{continue}

She takes the builder's hands, all of them. It's an old gesture. Warriors aren't supposed to do it. The builder looks up at her. Startled.

She says she'll be the last. Says she won't fail. 

She asks if the builder will stay. 

{continue}

The builder's quiet. The locket around her neck hums with a gentle cadence. A human cadence. Joy and family and love. 

The builder says yes.

{the end}


End file.
